Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the state is suing CVS and Walgreens for allegedly overselling opioids as the nationwide epidemic grows.
The lawsuit accuses the two major drugstore chains of using “unfair and misleading marketing” to push doctors to overprescribe opioids for chronic pain in place of other treatments. The State of Florida also says that this “artificially inflated demand” led to quantities of opioids in the state that “could not possibly have been medically justified,” according to court documents.
The lawsuit also names a third defendant, Insys Therapeutics, which Bondi says “provided kickbacks” to doctors who prescribed opioids.
“We will continue to pursue those companies that played a role in creating the opioid crisis,” Bondi said in a statement. “Thousands of Floridians have suffered as a result of the actions of the defendants.”
CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis told the Associated Press that the allegation that the company increased the opioid crisis “is without merit,” and that they are “dedicated to helping reduce prescription drug abuse and diversion.”
“Over the past several years, CVS has taken numerous actions to strengthen our existing safeguards to help address the nation’s opioid epidemic,” he said.
PEOPLE has contacted Walgreens for comment.
RELATED VIDEO: Jamie Lee Curtis Opens Up About Opioid Addiction She Hid for 10 Years: ‘No One Knew’
Florida has “seen a dramatic increase” in opioid overdoses in the last few years, the National Institutes of Health says. In 2013, there were 6.6 deaths for every 100,000 Floridians. By 2016, that number was up to 14.4.
Meanwhile, the rate of opioid prescriptions have actually dropped slightly, from 69.6 prescriptions per 100 people in 2013 to 62.8 prescriptions in 2015.
Florida used to be known as the home of “pain mills” — storefronts where doctors would perform a quick exam and then prescribe opioids to patients, which led to mass amounts of opioids in the state, NPR reported in 2011.
Law enforcement cracked down on the pain mills, but according to the new lawsuit, Walgreens has distributed billions of opioids in the state since 2006. It also claims that in two small towns, the company distributed amounts of opioids that far exceed the total population — 2.2 million opioids in Hudson, where 12,000 people live; and 285,000 pills in an unnamed town of 3,000.
The lawsuit also says that CVS distributed 700 million opioids between 2006 and 2014.
Source: Read Full Article